double the >, to >> and it appends to the named file for a 'running' log

Yes, but I seldom want a running log. During development, I do a lot of "find all" searches for messages output from the recipe, so I don't want to see the results of earlier tests. I use a standard format for printing messages from the recipe with a standard text string.

I search for all occurrences of the string "is: " to find critical junction points in the recipe. I often have the recipe print the entire "soup" of each article page, sometimes multiple times as it is processed, so my output has short messages tracking variables and errors, which are buried in the source code of multiple other pages. Finding the critical messages is hard enough without digging through older junk.

good effort, but hardly usable. the recipe I'm trying to modify used login / password. Tried to use the batch file and it stumbled at the first step, since it had to be entered manually.

All recipes that use login/passwords have to add the password manually or hardcode it into the recipe being tested. I don't think it's fair to call his batch file "hardly usable" just because it won't handle the special case of recipes that require logging in.

but correct me if I'm wrong: using command line implies that you'd use extra properties extensively. Login / password are just two of them. Since there is no interface for changing it in the command line, i can't see how it can by applied. It's helpful only if you have a basic recipe, which requires only internal editing of the recipe, like stylesheets, fonts, etc.

but correct me if I'm wrong: using command line implies that you'd use extra properties extensively. Login / password are just two of them. Since there is no interface for changing it in the command line, i can't see how it can by applied. It's helpful only if you have a basic recipe, which requires only internal editing of the recipe, like stylesheets, fonts, etc.

When running a recipe inside Calibre, there are only two types of recipes - those that need a user/password and those that don't. You can't pass anything to the recipe other than the user/password combo. His batch file works for those that do not need the user/password.

It's true that you can provide some other parameters to the recipe on the command line, but for general purpose testing, the only two I ever use are the same two he's hard-coded into the batch file "-vv" to get the verbose output and "--test" to limit the number of feeds and articles retrieved from each feed.

Basically, his batch file is identical to the one I use on every recipe I test except that he didn't send error output to a file. I use that same batch file even for recipes that need user/password, but I modify the recipe internally during the testing stage with a hardcoded user/password, then remove it before sending it to Kovid. His batch file essentially replicates the recommendation in the user manual here: http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual...ght=recipe#id9